Brian Friel's (Post) Colonial Drama: Language, Illusion, and PoliticsBrian Friel is Ireland's most important living playwright, and this book places him in the new canon of postcolonial writers. Drawing on the theory and techniques of the major postcolonial critics, F. C. McGrath offers fresh interpretations of Friel's texts and of his place in the tradition of linguistic idealism in Irish literature. This idealism has dominated Ireland's still incomplete emergence from its colonial past. It appeals to Irish writers like Friel who, following in a line from Yeats, Synge, and O'Casey, challenge British culture with antirealistic, antimirnetic devices to create alternative worlds, histories, and new identities to escape stereotypes imposed by the colonizers. Friel grew up in Northern Ireland's Catholic minority and now lives in the Irish Republic. McGrath maintains that all Friel's work is marked by colonial and postcolonial structures. Like his predecessor Wilde, Friel mixes lies, facts, memories, and individual perception to create new myths and elevates blarney to a realm of aesthetic and philosophical distinction. An important, accessible, scholarly introduction, this book illustrates how Friel playfully subverts the English language and transcends British influence. Friel's reality is constructed from personal fiction, and it is his liberating response to oppression. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Friel and the Irish Art of Lying | 13 |
The Short Stories | 49 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
Brian Friel's (Post) Colonial Drama: Language, Illusion, and Politics F. C. McGrath Limited preview - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Anglo-Irish Aristocrats artist audience Ballybeg Ballybeg Hall become Bhabha blind Bloody Sunday Brian Friel British Casimir Cass McGuire Cass's Catholic characters colonial Communication Cord Crystal and Fox Dancing at Lughnasa Dantanus Decay of Lying Derry Dionysian discourse Dodds's dramatic Dublin Eagleton English enunciation experience Faith Healer father fiction Field Day Frank Freedom Friel's play function Gaelic Gallery Press Gentle Island Grace House Hugh hybrid identity illusion imagination Irish culture Joyce Keeney language linguistic lives Loves of Cass master narratives memory metaphor Michael Molly Sweeney Molly's Mundy Scheme myth nationalism nationalist never newly sighted Northern Ireland O'Donnell O'Faolain O'Neill O'Neill's past political postcolonial theory premiered in Dublin reality represents Rice role Sacks says Seamus Seamus Deane sense social Steiner stories structure subaltern suggests Synge Teddy Theatre tion tive tradition Translations Trilbe unionist Widgery Wilde Wilde's Wonderful Tennessee writing Yeats Yeats's Yolland